John Engler and Geoffrey Fieger differ on many issues, but one thing on which the two candidates for Michigan governor agree is the central role of education in their campaigns to win the gubernatorial election on November 3. Polls show education at the top of the list of concerns of Michigan voters.

Republican incumbent Engler unveiled his proposals for education reform in his re-election platform, released in September. The proposals called for lifting the cap on the number of charter schools and otherwise expanding the state's public school choice law that first created charter schools in 1994. That law limits the number of charter schools that state universities can authorize to 150.

Engler, who has pledged to make education his top priority if elected to a third term, also proposed to create "freedom schools" in Detroit. The freedom schools plan would allow a two-thirds majority of parents or a simple majority of teachers and principals in Detroit to take over poorly performing public schools and run them separately from the district's school board.

Democratic challenger Geoffrey Fieger attacked the governor's education proposals in the Detroit Free Press, calling the freedom schools plan "the single nuttiest proposal any elected official has ever come up with in Michigan."

Fieger running mate Rep. Jim Agee of Muskegon, a former school superintendent, called Engler's plan "ludicrous." "Two-thirds of the parents will take over the schools and do what?" Agee asked in Education Week. The governor's office conceded that the details of the freedom schools plan had not yet been finalized.

Fieger's plans, which include a two-cent cut in the state sales tax, have also drawn heavy criticism. Republican state senator Dan DeGrow of Port Huron, who chairs the subcommittee on public school funding, called the Fieger tax cut "reckless," saying a reduction in the sales tax could cost schools as much as $2.3 billion. Michigan schools receive almost half of their funding from the sales tax.

Fieger has also called for an end to the use of property taxes to fund schools. A Fieger administration would "uncouple funding of education from property taxes" because it "produces inherent inequalities" in funding, according to the Fieger campaign Web site.

Rather, "all lottery monies collected will go directly to education and not to the general fund," according to the Web site. But that is already the case, according to the Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency. A document prepared by Rebecca Ross, a fiscal analyst and economist with the agency, states that "net lottery revenue," which is total lottery revenue minus expenses and prize awards, "is earmarked to the School Aid Fund."

Fieger brushed aside concerns about school funding. "Schools have nothing to worry about," he told the Free Press. "I'm the biggest defender of public schools that's ever been nominated."

Fieger and Agee have also expressed opposition to charter schools, which polls reveal are popular choices among Michigan parents seeking alternatives to poorly perceived local schools. Charter schools currently serve 30,000 children throughout the state.

The Michigan Education Association (MEA), the state's largest school employee union, has endorsed Fieger's candidacy for governor.

"John Engler has demonstrated a pattern of anti-public education policies," wrote MEA President Julius Maddox in an August letter to members. "Geoffrey Fieger will help restore to you and to our public schools the respect and resources necessary to meet the enormous challenges of the next millenium."

Michigan taxpayers will spend nearly $12 billion this year on public schools, up 51 percent since Gov. Engler took office, according to the Fiscal Year 1999 Executive Budget.

Meanwhile, polls show a majority of Michigan citizens favor proposals to provide greater parental choice in education, such as school tuition tax credits or vouchers.